Third Anniversary
by D.F. Twinkie
Summary: It's the third anniversary of Beckett and Castle's partnership and all the characters have a say. Co-written by fialka62, Cartographical, sarastar43, kiki39, and Jane0904. Will be updated daily.
1. Castle

**Title:** Third Anniversary  
><strong>Author:<strong> dftwinkie (individual authors listed in the chapters)  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> All aired episodes  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> They are not ours, we just love them.  
><strong>Author's Note:<strong>We're a little this year but we will be posting a story a day to celebrate.

_Time: because it's all about those little moments_

**Castle**

It was a moment of calm in what had been a busy day. At first it had astonished him that the precinct still be occupied at these times of the morning, when really late segues into really early, but then criminals didn't just work nine to five, so cops didn't either.

Still, this was quieter than usual, with only one of the other desks currently occupied at the other end of the floor, and it gave him time to consider the events of the day.

Kate had been amazing – talking Gutierrez down from the edge of the rooftop, telling him she understood ... which she probably did, considering his crime was killing the man who had driven his bright shiny sports car whilst drunk, and mounted the sidewalk. Marcia Gutierrez was only one of the casualties, but her husband owned a gun.

As far as police work was concerned, it was pretty much an open and shut case, and the only time was taken with trying to find Gutierrez, something they'd finally managed at closer to midnight than any of them liked, topped with a chase up the tall office building where he worked as a janitor.

Why did they always run _up_, Rick wondered. It wasn't like they could get to the top then do a Spiderman, swinging down the city canyons on webs of steel. Although in this case Gutierrez was planning to do a Greg Luganis to the concrete some twenty floors below. He'd have been a stain and a body bag if it hadn't been for Kate.

Instead Ryan and Esposito had taken Gutierrez to Central Booking, and Kate was starting on the unenviable task of dealing with the paperwork.

Rick sighed.

"Not interesting enough for you?" Kate asked, not lifting her head.

Still, he could detect the hint of a smile. "You're enough to drive a sane man crazy."

"Who said you were sane?" she countered.

"I'm as sane as the next man. Person," he corrected.

She made a sound like a swallowed laugh and looked up. "Anyway, why am I sending you into the arms of a strait jacket?"

He fluttered his hand like a captured bird. "All ... this!"

"You might like it if you tried it."

"One of my favourite phrases," he admitted, then added, "But I have enough to do with paper in my day job."

Her eyebrow arched. "So what's this? Moonlighting?"

"Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis," he remembered. "At least I've got more hair."

"For now."

His lips drew together in a fake display of hurt. "That's cruel."

"And you can't even blame genetics."

He sighed again, as deep as he could manage. "I know. Seeing as I don't have any idea who my father is."

She pointed at his head with her pen. "He could be as bald as a billiard ball."

"No. Don't say that," he implored, protectively running his hand over his hair, before changing tack and asking, "Have you ever played billiards?"

Kate shrugged. "Once or twice. But pool's more my game."

In a tight, sexy red dress, Rick's imagination supplied. "Mmn," he hummed.

"And you're trying to distract me."

Coming back from the pool table, his partner leaning provocatively over it, with a slight feeling of disappointment he rallied and asked, "Is it working?"

"Yes. Go home." She bent back to her work.

"There's nobody there to annoy."

She exhaled loudly and sat back in her chair, gazing at him. "Oh, that's right. Martha and Alexis are off on another college-viewing excursion, aren't they?"

"Until tomorrow night. So right now I'm footloose and fancy free."

"And I'm trying to work."

"Yes. Sorry." He tried the puppy dog eyes, but all she did was roll hers and start writing again.

Not that he could keep still for long. He began to fidget, picking up one of the small elephants from her desk and balancing it on its hind legs in the small bowl of jelly beans.

Without looking she reached out and took both bowl and elephant from him, placing them on the far side of the desk. _Scritch_ went her pen.

He sighed again.

Hers echoed his as she sat back. "If you're staying, why don't you help me with the paperwork?" she asked, from the look on her face knowing what the answer was going to be.

"No."

"Thought not."

"But neither are you."

"What?"

"Come on. I don't know about you, but I need a drink."

"How long have you had this alcohol problem?"

"It's no problem." He grinned then leaned forward, his hand on the desk top not far from hers. "This will all still be here in the morning, and I know for a fact that Captain Gates is taking the day off."

"You know that, do you?"

"Mmn."

"How, exactly? No. I don't think I want to know."

"Afraid it was pillow talk?"

"Castle." She gave him that look, the one that suggested he needed to stop talking. It didn't work.

"Jealous?"

"No."

"Pity." He smiled. "Anyway, the point is you can finish all this tomorrow. Well, later today, anyway. Come on, Kate. Let me buy you a drink."

She glanced at the solid watch on her wrist. "At this time of night?"

"There's a little place, nor far from here. I know the owner." His eyebrows did a syncopated dance.

"Are you considering drinking after hours?"

"Uh ... maybe."

"I'd have to arrest you."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"Why do I feel like it won't be the last?"

"I don't know. Have you always been psychic?"

"I wish. It would make my job a lot easier."

Rick put his fingertips on his temples, closing his eyes. "I see ... the paperwork being done tomorrow."

He heard her sigh, and opened his eyes again.

"Are you planning on helping?" she asked.

"It's ... possible."

"Be still my beating heart."

No, not that, he begged, but only smiled. "If you don't come with me you'll never know."

She was gazing at him, and as always he wondered if she was mind-reading every single misdemeanour in his long and varied career, over and above what was in his official jacket. Then she relaxed and nodded. "You know, you could be right. This will keep. And I could do with a glass of wine. But at my place."

"Really?" His hopes and his voice rose.

"Then I don't have to drive and I can put you into a cab." She stood up. "But I just need to ..." She waved her hand vaguely in the direction of the rest room. "First."

"I'll wait."

She headed for the bathroom, and his eyes followed her until she passed a calendar on the wall, and he shook his head. He hadn't mentioned it, but this was something else he was celebrating, if otherwise unmarked.

Three years. Somehow one thousand and ninety five days didn't seem as long, or maybe longer, depending on how tired he felt. But however he looked at it, it was three years since she'd tapped him on the shoulder at the book launch for Storm Fall and changed his life forever.

Hell, some _marriages_ didn't last as long.

Him and Gina, for instance, a mistake right from the moment he'd taken her trembling hand that frigid February day in a hot air balloon and tried to get the ring on her finger. Tried, being the operative word. She was shaking from the cold so much, and his own hands were going numb, it took four or five goes. That should have warned him it was a bad idea.

No. He'd do it right this time. Ryan had been spot on the money, proposing in the precinct and down on one knee. Big and intimate. And the look on Jenny's face … Now they were married, and all signs pointed to them staying happily that way for a long time to come.

He fingered the box in his pocket, feeling the edges dig into his palm. He wasn't going to give it to her tonight, any more than he had the last one hundred nights since he bought it. Or tomorrow for that matter. It might not even be soon, but he did intend to, at some point in the next million years or so.

It wasn't big, or ostentatious, because she wouldn't wear it if it was, and besides, this wasn't about the flamboyant or the grandiose, but something altogether deeper. And something he so far hadn't got the courage up to share.

Still, she'd be in the bathroom for a minute or two longer. Drawing the red leather box from his pocket he ran his thumbnail along the gold edge, then eased it open. A simple, delicate platinum band, and a small diamond, perfect in colour and clarity, its size denying the exorbitant price he'd paid for it. The jeweller had engraved the inside for him, the words he'd said on the worst day of his life, when he thought he'd lost her forever. "I love you, Kate."

He'd say it again, one day. Along with an "I do," if he had any say in matters. As his fingertip caressed the tooling around the stone, he let his imagination run away with him, the story playing out on the screen at the back of his mind's eye.

He imagined the wedding, and the honeymoon, and had got, somewhat improbably, to Kate on the porch of an old flatboard house out in the sticks somewhere, two children at her feet and a baby on her hip, waiting for him to come home with his rifle on his shoulder, a brace of wildfowl in his hand and a hunting dog running on ahead ... when in the quiet of the bull pen he heard the recognizable sound of four inch heels, and slipped the box back into his pocket. Not now. Not with … _things_ still hanging over them. But one day, when the sun was out and the birds were singing in Central Park.

"Are you okay?" She came round into his line of sight.

"Me? I'm fine."

"Only you looked miles away. What were you thinking about?"

"My next proposal."

"Fine. Don't tell me." She picked up her coat and shrugged into it as she headed for the elevator.

He quickly got to his feet and followed her, his overcoat over his arm. "Can I drive?"

"No."

"Just asking."

As they waited he covertly studied the curve of her neck, the line of her chin, how her hair was carelessly coiled at the nape of her neck, a tendril just escaping to rest on one shoulder. He had the urge to lift it up and clip it back, laying little kisses on the skin thus revealed ...

"Are you turning over a new leaf?"

Her voice startled him. "Huh?"

"Offering to do paperwork."

"I haven't actually offered."

"I knew it."

"No, that's not what I mean."

"So, are you? A new leaf?"

"Maybe. A fresh start. After all, it's been three years."

"I know."

His eyebrows raised. "You do?"

"I _can_ count, Rick." Her lips curved. "Although we are late."

"We are?"

"It was yesterday."

"No. Today. I remember it well."

She dropped her head and smiled, giving in. "It's still the anniversary."

The elevator doors opened and he let her go first, as always. "Here's to the next three."

"Only three?"

"Five? Ten?" A lifetime? he added silently.

"Baby steps, Castle. Baby steps. Let's go a year without me arresting you first."

He laughed. "Deal."

The elevator began its descent, and as he stood next to her he couldn't hide the grin. They might not be Vera and Joe, but he hoped for a happy ending, all the same. 

_Author: Jane0904_


	2. Martha

**Title:** Third Anniversary  
><strong>Author:<strong> dftwinkie (individual authors listed in the chapters)  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> All aired episodes  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> They are not ours, we just love them. 

**Martha**

Martha Rodgers staggered down the stairs, trying to make it to the kitchen table before the two-foot stack of folders and scripts slipped out of her arms.

She made it to the bottom stair before she realized she wasn't alone. She took in the scene before her, hesitating. Changing her mind, she staggered straight for the living room glass table where she managed to set everything down with no major disaster.

Richard and Beckett spun around, standing at the doorway to Richard's office all flushed cheeks and forced smiles. Martha held back a smile.

"Kate, dear, you aren't leaving already? If I'm interrupting something…"

Kate paused, one arm in her jacket. She cast a quick glance at Richard before turning back to her. "No, I should really go. It's late."

Martha eyed her curiously. "It's a little after eight." Before she could say more, Richard stepped forward helping Kate with the other sleeve of her jacket.

"Mother, Kate is not going to help you re-write your one woman play. Nor am I." He reached for the detective's elbow and ushered her towards the door.

"Heaven's Richard! I wouldn't never do such a thing. Poor Marcus would lose all this newly gained confidence as a budding playwright; confidence which I have spent the last few weeks nurturing. No, what I need is the both of you. Have a seat here," she gestured to the couch.

"Martha-"

"No, dear, it was your idea. Or at least you helped to inspire the idea. These budding actors and playwrights need me. And I need you two to help me."

Richard sighed. "Into the woods, again."

Kate laughed. "I still have my gun." She turned to Martha. "Okay, okay. What do you need us to do?"

Two hours and a few glasses of wine later, they had gone through all the written applications for her school.

Her son and Beckett sat together, intent on the papers before them. She watched Beckett lean into Richard. "Castle, look at this one." She turned to him a smirk on her face and started to read. "I want to bring complex and dynamic women like Nikki Heat to life. I believe my audition tape will prove I have the capability to do so."

"Oooh! Let me see that." He moved closer, reading over her shoulder. "'Books offer so much insight into...'" He laughed. "Mother, you have a fantastically shameless suck up here. I think she makes this round of cuts, if only so we can see her 'bring to life Nikki Heat'."

"This I have to see," Kate muttered. She rummaged through the application documents. "Here it is." She waved the disc triumphantly in the air.

Castle clasped his hands together in delight. "Best movie night ever!"

Martha stood up, dropping a stack of folders onto his lap. "Here, start with these. I need a break. And more wine."

Nearly 40 minutes of mostly painfully earnest and overacted auditions tapes and another bottle of wine later, Martha felt it was time to make herself scarce. Her son and Beckett were relaxed (and slightly drunk, she was sure) from all the wine. They looked at ease and happy. It was time to make her exit. She couldn't do all the work for them.

She threw up her arms in surrender. "Oh, that's all I can handle for one evening. I'm going upstairs to bed. I have an early morning tomorrow." Martha stood and squeezed Kate's hand briefly. "Thanks for your help, kiddo. I'll see you soon, I hope."

Kate smiled openly. "You will. Good night, Martha."

***

Later, Martha tiptoed quietly down the stairs. Her need for the Perrier water sitting in the fridge beat out her intention of leaving her son and his guest in privacy.

Her plan was thwarted when she saw Richard and Kate moving dishes to the sink and discussing a cab ride home. Rather than interrupt, she moved briskly and quietly (as only a seasoned lady of the stage could do) to Richard's office.

She sank down into the arm chair that just happened to have a view of the front door. After all, she couldn't help it if she could see them between Richard's books. Or that their soft voices carried as they moved to the entrance. She watched the scene unfold with interest.

The detective turned to her son. "Listen Castle, thanks. Tonight was...nice."

"It was," he agreed. He leaned closer and said something Martha couldn't hear. But from Kate's surprised laugh she figured it was something good.

She watched Richard kiss the detective's cheek, lingering much too long for a graceful exit. This lack of movement between the two them was getting ridiculous. Three years too long, if she really thought about it. None of them were getting any younger. The great Martha Rodgers was going to die of an ulcer—or frustration—instead of on stage playing the best role of her career to a sold-out, media-filled theatre at 98 years of age. She was going to have to remedy that. Maybe next time she'd serve them hard liquor. Tequila might work… 

_Author: kiki39_


	3. Iron Gates

**Gates**

She knew what they called her. _Iron Gates_. Like it was a term of abuse, an insult. Intractable. Immutable. With about as much compassion and understanding as the average house brick. That was fine. It had served her well enough in Internal Affairs, and she liked to think that on her watch nobody got away with anything. Just the way it should be.

Laughter outside her office had Gates lifting her head from where she was reviewing the Gutierrez report, and she looked out into the bullpen. The tall man, perched on the corner of the desk, had obviously said something funny, because the other two men were almost doubled over, and even the woman sitting down was smiling.

Something like a sixth sense must have made Ryan realise she was looking at them, because he said something that had himself and Esposito scuttling back to their own domain, leaving the other two alone together, the man sliding off the desk and into the chair, almost hiding behind the woman.

Gates didn't approve of liaisons between colleagues, and no matter how much Detective Beckett protested there was nothing like that between her and Mr Richard Castle, Captain Victoria Gates was not blind. Or stupid. So far in her career nobody had been able to pull the wool over her eyes, and she wasn't about to allow it now.

And yet there they were.

Beckett and Castle. Castle and Beckett. It sounded almost as much of a double act as Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello – although not quite as serious. Castle, in particular, had a boyish quality that set her teeth on edge, even as her analytical side acknowledged some weak-minded women might find it attractive. The fact that Katherine Beckett apparently fell into this category surprised her.

Beckett had issues, that was for certain. Just one look at the detective's file, the first day on the job nine months ago, had been enough to tell Gates everything she needed to know. The loss of Johanna Beckett, the death of Coonan here in this very precinct, the shooting at Captain Montgomery's funeral ... it was small wonder Kate Beckett had been under the care of a police-sanctioned psychiatrist.

Normally Gates wouldn't have allowed a detective with that sort of baggage back into Homicide, insisting instead she be better off putting her talents to use in a less intensive background. But there had been pressure from higher up the force, some of which she knew had come from the Mayor's office, and she'd had to acquiesce, albeit with the proviso that if Beckett failed, then she would be removed.

So far none of that had happened, and while Gates was loath to give credit to an outsider, not a small amount of that had been due to Rick Castle.

Gates shook her head. An author in a police station. It was unheard of, almost fictional in its quality. She'd tried to have him thrown out, and had been successful for a while, until the Mayor had yet again intervened. How nice it must be to have friends in high places.

When she'd first heard, Gates had wondered if Castle was only in it for the publicity value, but experience had tempered that view a little. Even after the case of the serial killer who used a rifle to shoot people more successful than himself, Castle hadn't gone bleating to the press about it, even though he had been the one who put the pieces together, saving a lot of lives. Gates knew conventional police work would have got there, but perhaps not in time.

That was the point, she knew. He wasn't conventional. Some of the cases he'd assisted in solving had been strange, to say the least, and perhaps having a brain used to connecting torturous and involved plotlines made for a good officer. Except he wasn't, and that grated more than anything. The precinct was for police, not amateurs, no matter how ...

For a moment her musings were put on hold as she noticed a typo, correcting it with a sweep of her pen, a slight tutting sound on her lips.

Movement caught her eye and she looked up. Castle was helping Beckett on with her coat, and they appeared to be arguing over something. A love spat, perhaps, although she was surprised to see the author head her way.

He was about to knock, but obviously realised she was looking directly at him, and opened the door instead.

"Captain, we were all just about to go for a drink at the Old Haunt," he said, a smile crinkling his blue eyes. "Would you like to join us?"

She glanced at the clock on her desk, surprised to see the time. "I've got work to finish," she said.

"Well, you know what they say, all work and no play makes Jack ..."

He was trying it on her, she knew. The charm offensive that had got him out of so much trouble he'd almost had to have two files all to himself. She raised an eyebrow at him. "No. Thank you," she added because it was polite to do so.

"Another time, then." He closed the door carefully, and headed back to Beckett.

_I told you so_. It was in the detective's stance, and the slap she gave to Castle's arm. She walked towards the elevator, collecting the other pair as she went, leaving the author ostentatiously rubbing his bicep as he followed, complaining.

The slightest of twitches tugged at the corner of Gates' mouth. He was like a puppy, trailing around after his mistress, wagging his tail and waiting for a treat. It would be amusing if it wasn't ever so slightly appalling.

Bending back to her work, Gates shook her head again. She just wished he would get on with it. Declare his love. Go down on one knee, if he had to. Then at least she'd be able to evict him from the precinct, because _that_ sort of relationship definitely wasn't allowed.


	4. Alexis

**Alexis**

Alexis was starting to get sick of the word "college."

Six months ago she'd had it all planned: graduate early; go to Stanford in the spring; be with Ash; live happily ever after. But then she hadn't gotten in, and she and Ash had broken up, and she wasn't really sure of anything anymore.

So here she was, on yet another college visiting road trip with Gram. Alexis felt like they must have seen every college on the East Coast by now, but that wasn't making her decision any easier. Maybe she just wouldn't go to college. No, that wouldn't work; she was dying of boredom this semester even with her internships, so staying at home any longer didn't really seem like an attractive option.

Not to mention that being "Richard Castle's daughter" had started to get old; Alexis wanted to live her own life for a change. And she was kind of tired of taking care of her father. She loved her dad, and most of the time he was great, but there was no doubt that of the three of them, Alexis was the most responsible in the family. Though it did seem like her dad had been growing up lately, and Alexis was sure that Detective Beckett was behind this development. Their relationship made Alexis uncomfortable for a whole host of reasons, though. She liked Beckett, she really did, it was just that her dad spent an awful lot of time at the precinct these days. It wasn't that Alexis minded sharing him, really (she'd certainly rather share him with Beckett than with, say, Gina). And her internship with Lanie had really made it clear how important her dad's work with Detective Beckett was. The trouble was, it had also made it clear how _dangerous_ that work was. She'd seen dead bodies up close now, and she couldn't help imagining her father's face on every one.

Still, Alexis knew that her father loved Kate, and she wanted him to be happy. She just wished that they could be happy together somewhere other than the 12th. It seemed like they had been dancing around the inevitable for three years now, and Alexis really hoped that the two of them would figure it out soon. After all, if he got to see Kate outside of work, maybe her dad wouldn't feel the need to keep putting himself into dangerous situations on her behalf.

Alexis' phone beeped, interrupting her musings. _Hey sweetie_, the text read, _just finished up a case. How about I meet you and Grams for dinner on your way back into the city?_

_Sounds great! Indian?_ Alexis texted back. She paused for a moment, pondering, then added, _If Det. Beckett wants to come too, that'd be ok._

_Author: sarastar43  
><em>


	5. Beckett

Beckett

She feels him, now. All the time. Staring at her. Not that he didn't stare at her before, but it's different now, different because she knows. Sometimes that's like a warm quilt on a rainy night. Sometimes it's a hot flush and a terrible pressure on her lungs, and her heart is flapping like a bird against a window, seeing the sky but unable to get out.

She was never sure before. Now she is, and she doesn't know what to do, doesn't want to hold onto him if she's not ready, doesn't want to let him go.

"Left here," he says, and she squelches a cheeky comeback, concentrates on turning the corner as if she's a high school student and he's her first driving instructor. Seventeen is about right for the way he makes her feel these days, alternately brash and tongue-tied, kind of wishing he'd just scoop her up and drag her off to ravish her, pretty damn certain she'd fight like hell if he actually ever tried.

Beckett sighs, straightening her arms to push against the steering wheel, shoving herself deeper into her seat. Beside her, Castle opens his mouth as if to say something, closes it again and turns his attention back to his phone. She's got a GPS they could be using, but he's got some new souped-up map-tracker-app-gizmo and she gives him so little these days, the least she could do, it seemed, was let him give her directions to Ryan and Jenny's housewarming party.

'Explain to me why a cop buys a house in a place called Fresh Kills?' Castle asks, glancing out the window at the trees lining his side of the road. 'Just being on Staten Island isn't dead enough?'

A smile twists her mouth, pleasure suppressed by instinct. 'It's as far as a Bronx boy can get from his seven siblings and 490 in-laws?'

He laughs, but it's got a harsh, hollow tone, something probably only she can hear, even when she pretends she doesn't. Like she pretends she doesn't sometimes envy Ryan and his 490 in-laws, his seven siblings, his very alive and very Irish great-grandmother, his happy grandparents and parents, his even happier bride. They're Manhattan babies, she and Castle, growing up in two bedroom apartments, sophisticated, but alone. She's never even asked him if he wanted siblings as a child.

She feels him looking at her again, but when she glances over, he's just transferred his attention to the giant shopping mall on her side. Once, she thinks, he'd have had that crazy light in his eyes, would probably have begged her to stop at the stadium-sized Toys R Us, and if she'd been crazy enough to relent, he'd have danced her down the aisles to the supersoakers and made suggestive remarks about dueling in white t-shirts.

She misses those remarks more than she thought she ever would. Sometimes she baits the hook herself, just to see if he'll bite. Mostly, these days, he doesn't. That's maybe the thing she feels most guilty for.

Okay. Maybe not quite.

After the mall, it's trees and silence, and then, abruptly, they're on a suburban road, and a couple of minutes later, pulling up in front of Ryan's new house. 'Dierauf Street,' Castle says, for about the fifteenth time since Ryan gave them the address, pronouncing it Die Rough. '_Dierauf_ Street, in Fresh Kills. That is so going into the next Nikki Heat.'

'What, are you planning to marry her off to Rook and send them off to retire in the suburbs?'

'Sure, why not? With two point four children,' Castle agrees, with a smile that doesn't quite look like he's enjoying the joke. 'And a basketball hoop on a two-car garage, and a couple of rocking chairs on the front porch.' They both turn as one to stare at the two-story duplex across the road. Modest in its aspirations, with its little five by five plot of front lawn, its brick front, its dark blue shutters a peaceful contrast to the clean white clapboard of the upper floor. There's no hoop over the garage, not yet, no trikes in the driveway or supersoakers on the front porch, but she has no doubt there will be, and soon. She imagines a couple of blonde blue-eyed kids rocking madly on the porch chairs, and later a grey-haired Jenny and Ryan, sipping iced tea and watching the world go by.

'Are you really going to retire Nikki Heat at the end of this book?' she asks. Not what she was going to say at all.

'I don't know. It's tempting, to end the series with this contract. Give her a happy ending. You keep going and eventually it's got to go horribly wrong just to keep the audience's interest up.'

'What if it's not what Nikki would want?' His gaze drifts back to her now, carefully guarded. She makes herself hold it, even though every instinct is screaming at her to look away. 'What if Nikki loves her job and loves her city, and wouldn't want to give either of them up?'

'What if Rook wants to keep jetting around the world writing about rock stars?'

'Then he'd keep jetting around the world writing about rock stars. Would it really matter as long they know they're together, even when they're not?'

He blinks and the veil over his gaze lifts, just for a moment. She sees hope flair there, and falter, and it's on the tip of her tongue, to say it, just _say_ it, two little words. I remember. I know.

Me too.

Instead, she pats his arm and smiles, and says, 'Let's go.' And the moment passes, as it always does.

And as always, she promises herself that next time it won't.

_Author: fialka_


	6. Esposito

**Esposito**

Javi tries not to watch people he knows, or at least not to get caught watching. But he knows PTSD, and he knows Kate Beckett. And that bright, shiny smile that makes it look like everything's okay, while not letting anything get past the surface of her skin? Yeah. It's functional, but it's not _real_.

This he knows from his own experience, his own years after the Gulf, smiling and laughing and sliding through life like a greased pig no one could catch. And now, of course, when he's ready to be caught, the one he wanted to catch him has tossed him back and run away.

But right now, he's not going to think about that.

Castle came to him when Beckett's _I'm fine_ cracked and it became glaringly obvious that she was anything but. The fear and frustration radiating off him sent Esposito back to the dusty, claustrophobic caves of the Spīn Ghar Range. Where the vast mountain ranges, extreme weather and constantly shifting alliances left you paranoid, isolated and afraid. Where he'd watched, helpless, as first Rykerson then Boyd cracked under the weight of broken bodies, constant bombings and fear of what next? He saw that same helpless question in Castle's eyes. So he stopped watching Beckett's back and stepped in, face forward.

PTSD? Yeah, he knows what to do about that.

Relationships?

Hell.

Isn't that why he's here? Sitting at a noisy sports bar, instead of curling up with Lanie's warm body after this really shitty day. Experience has taught him not to get too close. But somewhere along the good times and great sex, things with Lanie became more. And rather than run like Beckett, or silently suffer like Castle, he grabbed his prize and clung.

Too tight, too fast. Lanie thinks he wants marriage now. (He doesn't.) He can admit now (two beers into the third quarter) that her unequivocal no to the idea of marriage had felt more like a no to life with him. So he pushed. And they imploded.

And then they danced.

It's nothing they've ever talked about since (taking a leaf out of Beckett's book there). But Lanie likes him and he likes her and if they can dance at Ryan's wedding without him stepping on her toes, then maybe they've got some rhythm together after all.

And the one thing Javi knows, really knows - watching Castle and Beckett dance so close that night they were hardly moving, yet somehow getting further and further apart all winter long - is that he doesn't want to spend another year alone. Cause standing still? All you are is more likely to get shot. And the other thing Spīn Ghar taught him is that two in the field are always safer than one.

_Authors: Fialka and kiki39_


	7. Lanie

**Lanie**

"How did you do it?" Alexis asks, reaching for Lanie's scalpel as she stares a little too intently at the corpse of the former Erick Hendrickson. Gunshot wound to the stomach; took him half an hour to bleed out in Central Park. Messy.

"Watch it," Lanie says, jerking the scalpel away from Alexis' hand.

"Oh, sorry, sorry," Alexis says, her cheeks flushing bright, and she briefly takes her eyes off the corpse so that she can receive the scalpel more carefully. Alexis hates it when she makes mistakes, more even than Lanie would expect out of a perfectionist - she seems to sense how many strings Lanie had to pull to get the kid down in the morgue with her, let alone at crime scenes. Her eyes fix back on the gunshot wound once the scalpel's on the tray.

"Do what?" Lanie asks, suddenly certain that she doesn't actually want to have this talk.

"With Esposito," Alexis says.

Oh, she _definitely _does not want to be having this conversation. "Yes?" Lanie prompts after Alexis doesn't seem inclined to continue. The girl swallows and Lanie thinks she probably could have taken some of the edge out of her tone.

"Sending someone you lo - someone you cared about - into that job every day. How did you do it?"

Lanie can't help the sad smile that she know quirks across her lips. "Well - I guess I didn't."

"I don't know how anyone can," Alexis says, miserably, still starting at the small wound the bullet made as it tore through Hendrickson's left transverse abdominis.

Lanie suddenly wants to send the kid home - ideally, she'd take her out for a coffee, but she still has another body to do and she wants to wrap up with some of her night left.

"It's been three years," Alexis continues. "And I didn't mind at first. At first, I thought it was kind of cool. Like his novels in real life. She trails off, bites her lower lip.

"You don't think that anymore," Lanie prompts.

"I was an _idiot_," Alexis whispers harshly. "And it took watching Detective Beckett almost dying in that cemetery, watching my dad try to take a bullet for her, to realize that. It's not cool, and it's not good for him. It could get him killed, it puts him in danger every day, and sometimes I wake up at night sweating and all I can remember from my dreams is the sound of a gunshot."

Lanie takes one deep breath, then another. The words are a little too close, the dreams a little too near hers. There's a reason she prefers her patients on the cold steel slab of a morgue table. She hates it, hates the slick slide of blood under her palms, hates the pulse and rush of a life draining away beneath her fingertips. "I know," she whispers. Except when she wakes up she's left with an image instead of a sound, her friend's face lying on one of her tables. Sometimes Javier's face, if she'd had a run-in with him during the day. It makes her do things like snap irrationally, swings her emotions through too many poles to count.

"Three years is enough," Alexis says. "Don't you think?"

"For your dad to be following Detective Beckett around?"

"No," the girl sighs, handing Lanie the heavy rib cutters, fingers properly away from sharp edges this time. "For a grown person not to know what they want."

At that, Lanie has to laugh. "Oh baby, I hate to disappoint you," she answers. "But to be completely honest? You pretty much never grow out of that."

_Author: CartographicalConspiracy_


	8. Ryan

Dear Readers-

It has come to our attention that our dear Kevin has buggered off for a much-belated honeymoon with his lovely new bride before his spring vacation ends. There will, therefore, be no Ryan chapter this anniversary. Just think "bunnies" and you'll know what his update would have been.

Hopefully, we will be able to say the same about Beckett and Castle this time next year. (We do not, however, advocate the holding of breath.)

Yours regretfully,  
>D.F. Twinkie<p> 


End file.
